England taking no risks with Jofra Archer with Ashes and World Cup on the horizon

England will be taking no risks with fast bowler Jofra Archer's return to action following his 22-month injury nightmare.

Archer has began his comeback from well-documented elbow and back issues in encouraging fashion, taking 12 wickets in four One-Day Internationals against South Africa and Bangladesh.

The 27-year-old even took career-best ODI figures of 6-40 during the 59-run victory over the Proteas in February.

But white-ball head coach Matthew Mott revealed on Tuesday that England erred on the side of caution when ruling out fielding Archer twice in three days against Bangladesh last week.

When asked whether it was even under consideration to play him in two games in quick succession – in a year when England face Australia in the Ashes and defend their 50-over World Cup crown – Mott gave a blunt response: “Not really, no. The medical advice was definitely not back-to-back games.”

His workload from now until the start of England's summer programme will be a diet of T20s – next up being a three-match series against Bangladesh that starts on Thursday before jetting to the Indian Premier League – but Mott is confident Archer will peak at the right time.

“He's a box office player,” Mott said. “He's fitted back into the group beautifully and it's an incredible effort for a fast bowler to be out for that long and come back and play as he has done.

“He would admit that he's not fully firing on all cylinders. You can just see he's ticking all the boxes to get back to his best.

“He just seems to be really slowly, strategically making sure he's doing it right and ticking over and come the Ashes, come the World Cup, I'm sure you'll see him back to his best.”

Archer has been part of an impressive bowling unit in Bangladesh which